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This book presents results of an international conference which addressed the interaction of aesthetical and technological dimensions within the formation of contemporary society. The contributions discuss the production of time and space, self and nature, individual and society in the image of technology. They focus on the productive tensions and convergences between aesthetic and technological concepts when implemented in everyday life. The volume contains - among others - texts about technologies of visualisation, the aesthetics of warfare and the design of technological lifeworlds.
As the complicated relationship between music and theatre has evolved and changed in the modern and postmodern periods, music has continued to be immensely influential in key developments of theatrical practices. In this study of musicality in the theatre, David Roesner offers a revised view of the nature of the relationship. The new perspective results from two shifts in focus: on the one hand, Roesner concentrates in particular on theatre-making - that is the creation processes of theatre - and on the other, he traces a notion of ‘musicality’ in the historical and contemporary discourses as driver of theatrical innovation and aesthetic dispositif, focusing on musical qualities, metapho...
The first edited volume to examine philosopher Slavoj Žižek's influence on, and his relevance for, theatre and performance studies. Featuring a brand new essay from Žižek himself, this is an indispensable contribution to the emerging field of Performance Philosophy.
This book explores the expressly pictorial type of visual archaeology, the transcribing of three-dimensional materiality into two-dimensional depictions, and its influential history within the discipline. The picturing of ancient sites and artifacts to convey information links visual reporting with the workings of the imagination and indicates that the study of antiquity has always had a hybrid identity: part artistic and part scientific. In examining expressly pictorial forms of visual story-telling about the past, this book looks beyond certain supposed "creative turns" and focuses instead on creative continuities, answering key questions about the power of picturing and its ability to not...
The first study to systematically trace the impact of theatre on the emerging public of the early modern period.
Suicide and Contemporary Science Fiction examines the fascination with suicidal crises evident in a range of science fiction. Specifically, this study explores a seemingly counterintuitive proposition: in moments of dramatic scientific and technological change, the authors of these works frequently cast self-destructive episodes as catalysts for beneficial change. Carlos Gutierrez-Jones argues that this creative self-destruction mechanism is invoked by H. G. Wells as a means of negotiating Victorian anxieties regarding evolutionary theory, by Stanislaw Lem as he wrestles with the prospect of nuclear self-destruction at the dawn of the space age, by William Gibson as he considers the developm...
Peters defines media expansively as elements that compose the human world. Drawing from ideas implicit in media philosophy, Peters argues that media are more than carriers of messages: they are the very infrastructures combining nature and culture that allow human life to thrive. Through an encyclopedic array of examples from the oceans to the skies,The Marvelous Clouds reveals the long prehistory of so-called new media. Digital media, Peters argues, are an extension of early practices tied to the establishment of civilization such as mastering fire, building calendars, reading the stars, creating language, and establishing religions. New media do not take us into uncharted waters, but rather confront us with the deepest and oldest questions of society and ecology: how to manage the relations people have with themselves, others, and the natural world.
This book shows the ways in which English, French, and German eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century encyclopaedias dealt with things Chinese, offering an analysis of the broad variety of sources and an overview of the main strands of discourse on China.
Reclaiming fun as a meaningful concept for understanding games and play. “Fun” is somewhat ambiguous. If something is fun, is it pleasant? Entertaining? Silly? A way to trick students into learning? Fun also has baggage—it seems inconsequential, embarrassing, child's play. In Fun, Taste, & Games, John Sharp and David Thomas reclaim fun as a productive and meaningful tool for understanding and appreciating play and games. They position fun at the heart of the aesthetics of games. As beauty was to art, they argue, fun is to play and games—the aesthetic goal that we measure our experiences and interpretations against. Sharp and Thomas use this fun-centered aesthetic framework to explore...
Res is a journal of anthropology and comparative aesthetics dedicated to the study of the object, in particular cult and belief objects and objects of art. The journal presents contributions by philosophers, art historians, archaeologists, critics, linguists, architects, artists, among others.